by Dorothy Eden
On the way to the large kitchen situated at the back of the house on the ground floor, Aunt Charity paused to look into the maid’s room.
That, too, was spruce and clean. It was small, certainly, but it had everything a girl could require, even a bright rag mat at the bedside, and washbasin and jug in plain white china. The window looked out into the wilder part of the garden, and the flax bushes crackled like flicked whips, but after three months at sea a young woman wasn’t going to be nervous of a few noises outdoors. She could lock her window if she were. But one did hope she was the old-fashioned type of maid who put her work and her mistress first, and wouldn’t get these flighty ideas of independence that almost all immigrants seemed to get. Because, with parties and balls, there would be a great deal of sewing and laundering and ironing to do, and even perhaps waiting on table. Let’s hope the girl was adaptable, and knew her place.
On the whole, Aunt Charity was well pleased with her plotting and planning. She lived in one of the finest houses in Wellington, her husband was a respected bank manager, she herself stood in the coveted position of cousin to the Governor, and therefore an acknowledged leader of society. For a comparatively new community she had contrived a surprisingly comfortable and civilized standard of living. Soon, one didn’t doubt, the social amenities would bear happy comparison with those belonging to a similar standard of life in England. It was really enormously exciting pioneering such a worthwhile cause.
There was no reason at all, simply none at all, to let one’s mind dwell for one shocking second on that horrid description of Hubert’s, that poor white hand slowly crisping and curling with heat and filling with dreadful gravy.…
III
THE MAN on the black horse drew rein for a minute to look at the new ship anchored in the bay. Boats were on their way out to it. Shortly, another batch of bewildered homesick immigrants would stand on dry land wondering what roof would shelter their alien heads, and what they were to do with their conglomeration of possessions, pianos, kitchenware, family portraits, bedsteads and crinolines transported sentimentally from their homeland.
Saul Whitmore was able to feel superior to this far-off scene. He had sailed several years ago in a cargo ship along with his first consignment of sheep and cattle, and, in company with a tough hard-working crew, had escaped the emotionalism and confusion of a shipload of immigrants.
Now this beautiful wild country was his home. He had hacked out his farmlands from the bush, turned loose his livestock, and, over the last five years, built his ambitious house. It was the finest for many miles.
He did not particularly want to boast of owning the finest home in the district, but he was accustomed to a certain standard of living, which it seemed only sensible, if possible, to maintain even in the bush.
Besides, one did not take a bride to a mere laborer’s hut. One offered the best one could—even to an as yet unknown woman.
Saul’s horse, sensing his master’s mood, fidgeted restlessly on the dusty track. Saul cast another look downwards at the midget boats toiling across the wrinkled blue water, and spoke to his horse, “Come on then, old fellow. Home now.”
But his brow was dark as he turned down the track towards the town and his mother’s house. It was a pity, he was reflecting, that women were so necessary.
His mother, a toweringly tall old woman, thin as the niu poles which the Maoris hoisted at their incantation ceremonies, with yellow-tinged skin and enormous high-bridged nose, looked at him comprehendingly.
“Well, my boy, you’ve come.”
“Yes, mother.” He kissed her cheek. He did not need to stoop. She was as tall as he. They were good friends, these two. She knew why he had come and what he was thinking. Even if they had not been friends she would have known, for she had strange powers of intuition. The people who were afraid of her she scorned. Some of those silly giggling girls, for instance, one of whom this black-browed son of hers would have to make his wife.
“How are things? Do you want tea? Or whisky?”
“Whisky, please. Things are so so. The house is finished. I’ve called the place Lucknow.”
His mother’s face softened. “Thank you, Saul. That’s a nice tribute. But why are things only so so?”
“It’s the old trouble.” Saul flung down his pack. “The Maoris. Oh, they’re friendly enough on the surface, but now Te Kooti has escaped from the Chatham Islands his myth is spreading. He’s bad, but he’s a devastatingly clever war leader, and he uses these horrible pseudo-religious initiation ceremonies to get recruits.”
“They’re savages, of course. In spite of the poor optimistic missionaries.”
“Poor missionaries is right,” Saul agreed. “Have you heard what happened to that poor devil, the Reverend Volkner? He was beheaded with a tomahawk, and they put his head in church on the pulpit. There the chief gouged out the eyes and swallowed them, one by one. That’s his way of defeating the enemy, apparently, though I believe the last eye nearly choked him. Sometimes I think these Maoris are not human. If you’ve heard one of their attacks when they yell like wild dogs, or wolves, hau, hau, hau hau, you’d believe they’re fiends. They take their initiation ceremony around the severed head of a British officer, stroking or even licking the decaying flesh. They’d drink its blood, if there were any left!”
“This is only a disease they have temporarily,” Mrs. Whitmore said.
“But it’s spreading. Especially with a fanatic like Te Kooti. He’s a handsome devil, you know, with that curly black hair and arrogant tattooed face. He’s young, too, and strong and very brave. He wears a cloak of black and white feathers, and one of his men always carries his own particular flag into battle. Te Wepu, the Whip. Oh, he knows all the tricks.”
“Why did they let him escape from the Chathams after he was imprisoned there?”
Saul shrugged. “He’s another Bonaparte, perhaps. At least, he has the same pattern of megalomania. His return has set some fires alight. There’ll be guerilla warfare until he’s caught again, or killed. One never knows where he’ll strike. The bad thing is, one can’t trust one’s own natives any more. They disappear overnight or steal one’s horses.”
Then he smiled reassuringly at his mother. “Perhaps it’s not as bad as that. We’ve had no attacks close at hand. They’ve been in Hawkes Bay and the Urewera country. But nobody listens to me when I tell them this trouble is spreading, and the army—I’m sorry, mother, but I’ve yet to find a more stupid commanding officer than Major Braby in our district.”
“Something’s happened to upset you recently, Saul?”
The old lady’s eyes penetrated her son’s somber face. He didn’t try to deceive her. He never had been able to, and he knew it was useless to attempt to do so now.
“I found young David Bowden’s body in the forest. The heart had been cut out, and—” His face grew dark. “There’s no use in talking about it. But all in all, it might be better if you don’t come up until this trouble blows over.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Haven’t I always gone everywhere with your father?”
This was true enough. Mrs. Whitmore had been at uncomfortably close proximity to several battles, and had lived through the siege of Lucknow during which her husband, Colonel Whitmore, had died. It was true that she was not to be frightened by a couple of hundred yelling brown men, tattooed and almost naked. She had seen that kind of thing before. There was a limit to the horrors one’s mind could assimilate, or the fear one could feel. There was even a limit to the various methods of frightfulness.
“I shall come later, Saul. That’s definite. I’ll shut up this house, if one can call it a house.” There was a flash of humor in her extraordinary dark eyes as she looked around the tiny room, small-windowed and claustrophobic. “I’ll be glad to get away from that smoky chimney. It’s the strange currents of wind, I think. I hope you’ve managed better in Taranaki. But what about the girl?”
“The girl?”
“Don’t pretend to be stupid
. Your wife.”
“Oh, that. Well—what do you suggest, mother?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. Anyone would have you. Jump at the chance. Heaven knows why! You’ll frighten the life out of them.”
Saul grinned suddenly, his heavy brows lifting. “I won’t put up with the vapors, if that’s what you mean.”
“There’s Susan Chittaway, who weeps if you so much as look at her. Or Janet Reid. She’d give you healthy children, but what she would do in a Hauhau attack, I’d hate to think. Or that bold creature, Sarah Jane Maxwell. In some ways, she might be the better choice.”
“There was a ship in the harbor as I came along,” Saul commented.
His mother looked up with sharp interest. “That’ll be the Mary Louise. Charity Carruthers has done nothing but talk of her for the last three months. She has two nieces on board. Coming out to find husbands. Perhaps you’d better look them over. Though what a niece of Charity Carruthers might have to commend her, I can’t imagine.”
“I’ll take a trip to England,” said Saul suddenly, with a hint of desperation.
“No, you won’t. You’ll stay right here and marry the first healthy girl who’ll have you and start a family.”
“Mother! Marriage isn’t that important.”
“It is for you, Saul,” said the old woman, fixing him with her intense eyes which made no secret now of her obsession. “You’re the last of your line. I want you to have children. Your father longed for that. For his sake and my own, I want my first grandchild. You’re thirty. You’ve waited too long already. I won’t have you taking any more risks until you’ve made sure of this. Life’s too uncertain anywhere, and particularly here, with this madman Te Kooti on the warpath again. You’re not to wait any longer, Saul. I ask you not to.”
Saul’s brows were lifted arrogantly to face her. “And what am I expected to feel for one of these silly young virgins who’ll be scared of her own shadow. Love?”
“Call it what you like,” his mother said impatiently. “But find a healthy girl and get her into bed. Don’t go on dallying. You need a wife, and I want a grandchild. I haven’t superhuman patience, even if you have. What’s wrong with you, may I ask?”
“Nothing at all,” Saul grinned. He pressed his mother’s shoulder affectionately. “Very well, you old tyrant. I’ll show you. But she ought to be able to cook, don’t you think?”
“Certainly. And sew, and run a household efficiently. If her face is pretty, so much the better. I’m sorry, Saul. If you were in England I’d be content for you to go to every ball in the country. But you’re not in England. You’re in a new country where the simple facts of existence are the ones that count. I shouldn’t have to tell you what they are.”
“Mother, be assured, you don’t.”
“Then what about starting by going to Charity Carruthers’ welcome party for the two nieces. She’ll be overjoyed if you walk in.”
Saul sighed with distaste and boredom. “Must I?”
“It’s a beginning. And when you’re married, if you don’t want to take the girl to the country until things are quieter, you can leave her here with me.” The old lady’s eyes twinkled with macabre humor. “I, at least, won’t eat her.”
Saul swallowed his whisky and went out to unsaddle his horse. The wind was cool now, and carried the tang of the sea, although here a shoulder of the hill hid the bay from sight. The little ship riding at anchor was hidden. Yet, for some reason, she was vividly in his mind. Perhaps she had carried on board the woman he wanted, the single one in the whole world whom he could imagine permanently at his side. Because there was such a woman, he knew. Or was that just one of the foolish fancies he had caught from his mother? His mother was a very dominating woman, but since he had outgrown childhood she had not dominated him. If he did not wish to marry he would not.
Yet in this instance he secretly agreed with his mother. He already loved this country and wanted to do more than his best for it. One necessary thing was to populate it with its own true sons, not this miscellany of people who drifted out on immigrant ships in search of some El Dorado that never existed. He would like to give it several sons, to create green fertile lands out of the wild bush country, and to turn the Maori back into the fine, intelligent, handsome native he was.
Besides these lofty ambitions, it came back to the simple fact that his mother had pointed out. He needed a wife.
Suddenly, standing there in the cool wind, he thought of a woman’s white hand on his flesh, and he tensed and trembled. It had been a long time. Abruptly he turned to re-saddle his horse.
“Sorry, old fellow. But we’re going into town.”
A wife, yes. A soft-skinned girl who spoke the Queen’s English, and would become an efficient mistress of his new home.
But not tonight …
IV
AUNT CHARITY stood back from the three girls, biting her lips with disappointment.
What had she got here? Really, what had she got here?
Sophia, the eldest, was untidy. Already she had lost her reticule twice, her bonnet was askew on her head, and her light-colored fine hair, the kind that needed the most careful and secure arrangement, was slipping loose. Also, she talked too much. Her tongue hadn’t been still since that moment of meeting on the wharf. Didn’t she know that a too busy tongue could drive away a prospective husband? Surely her mother must have taught her better manners. No doubt, indeed, she had, but the long voyage with little supervision from that stupid Mrs. Crewe had taught her undesirable habits.
As for Prudence, she had performed the incredible folly of falling in love with a penniless ship’s officer, and her face was unattractively blotched from crying. One would have to talk to her about the impossibility of that love affair. But not yet. Tears were still too incipient, and Aunt Charity loathed a damp and sniffing young woman.
There remained the maid, Briar—was that her impossible name? She stood in the background meekly enough, her eyes downcast, her pale face telling nothing. But already one sensed a wildness about her, and too much arrogance in that slim figure.
Perhaps it was only that she made Sophia and Prudence look too plump and heavy. Though that was absurd, for as long as a girl had a slim waist a man preferred curves, a swelling bosom and rounded hips.
Aunt Charity, complacent about her own very firm and ample curves, decided that perhaps she was judging too hastily. She had looked forward so eagerly to the arrival of the dear girls, and built so many hopes on their English milk-and-roses complexions, not yet tanned and dried by the vigorous antipodean sun and wind, that she had forgotten one must arrive disheveled and travel-stained after such a long journey, living out of trunks for weeks, and in a state of emotional upheaval.
Aunt Charity could be very kind when she deemed it necessary. Her tight mouth relaxed into a warm smile, and she leaned forward to kiss each of her nieces affectionately.
“Well, here we are, home. Now I wonder what you will think of my house at the end of the world.”
“It’s very nice, Aunt Charity,” said Sophia, remembering her manners, but looking doubtfully at the wide hall, the wooden staircase, and the bowl of unfamiliar raupo reeds, arranged like sheathed swords in a tall vase. “Is it always as windy as this?”
“Mostly, I’m afraid. We’re on a bluff that catches the wind. But you’ll get used to it. It’s a little difficult for large hats, and one’s skirts need to be weighted down. I do hope you dear girls have brought some new fashions from London. We hunger for new fashions. Anyone just arrived is the center of attention.”
Sophia’s eyes began to sparkle pleasurably. Prudence sniffed and fumbled for her handkerchief.
“But come along upstairs and see your room and freshen up. Tom will bring your bags up later. And then you must meet your uncle.”
Aunt Charity sailed towards the stairs. Halfway up she paused to look down at the silent girl left standing in the hall. There was something in that erect figure, the aloof gaze, that made her uneasy
. Really, the girl had only been ashore an hour, and already she seemed to have acquired that haughty independent look that was so to be deplored among the working classes here. A look, if one could believe it, of deliberate equality!
“Just wait, will you,” she called. “I’ll be down presently to show you your room. And then your mistresses will require your help to dress for dinner.”
So it was that Briar met Uncle Hubert.
He came pottering out of his study at the other end of the long passage and saw her standing there obediently, her composed face giving no clue as to her feelings.
“Hello,” he said genially. “I thought I heard voices.” He held out his hand. “Which one of my nieces are you?”
“Neither, sir. I’m the maid.”
“Oh! Oh, I see. Well, welcome just the same. I’m Hubert Carruthers. You’ll be seeing me around a good deal. Did you have a pleasant voyage?”
“Quite pleasant, thank you,” Briar answered, with her impeccable accent.
It caused Uncle Hubert to look at her more closely. H’mm! If his wife’s two nieces also looked like this there was going to be quite a stir in town. The local young ladies were going to seem definitely gauche and colonial.
“How long did it take? Twelve weeks?”
“Just over, sir.”
“Captain all right? Good type? Nice passengers? Not your business to comment, I imagine, though you have got two eyes in your head.”
And very fine ones, too, Uncle Hubert noted. He was a friendly person who had been away from the rigid caste system of Victorian England long enough to see people as they were. They were all worth knowing, he had discovered. As bank manager, he had set many a rough-voiced honest young man on his feet, and one or two of them now had finer houses and better bank accounts than his own. If it hadn’t been for his wife, with her social ambitions and conventions, combined with her strong personality, he would have lived a very simple life, choosing his friends for their qualities, not their birth.
